


Displays of Power

by NebulousMistress



Series: Let Slip the Hounds of the First Order [4]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Brendol Hux's A+ Parenting, Contains Science, Deliberate Asteroid Impacts, Gen, Geology, Ilum (Star Wars), Mad Science Corps, Medical Experimentation, Medical Procedures, Monster Armitage Hux, Physics, Pre-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, did the research, radiation poisoning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-06-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:14:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24461143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: With General Brendol Hux missing in action on Parnassos, Captain Armitage Hux gets the chance to assert his control over the Ilum project as Head Engineer. It's a chance he is unwilling to waste.
Series: Let Slip the Hounds of the First Order [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698706
Comments: 46
Kudos: 41





	1. Ilum

**Author's Note:**

> Wookiepedia has some information on Ilum. I'm ignoring it. As of this writing, Wookiepedia is trying to tell me Ilum is only a little bigger than [Vesta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_Vesta). This hurts me right in the Science. Ilum has been rebuilt in a bigger, fatter image more capable of getting hit with asteroids for fun and profit.

Captain Armitage Hux walked the catwalks of construction scaffolding that propped up the beginnings of his Starkiller Base. The name wasn’t official yet, it wasn’t a name he’d shared with anyone else, but he liked it. It matched what he wanted this base to do. It was a name to be feared, like ‘Death Star’ once was.

In order to truly use Ilum he needed to understand Ilum. The planet was known to be rich in the kyber crystal used by Jedi and Sith mystics in their lightsabre blades and by the Empire in their weapons. The turbolasers of a Star Destroyer used kyber in their construction similar to how a visual laser might use a diamond or an alexandrite.

Imperial data showed kyber deposits within Ilum along the lines of magma dykes, volcanic vents, and flood basalts. The geologists had assured him that meant the kyber must have formed underneath, within the mantle or the core of the planet.

Hux listened vaguely to the stammering explanations given by the Stormtrooper Captain on duty, JZ-4331. He knew better than anyone the current details of this project. Construction on the forcefields to keep the atmosphere from spilling into the planet’s mantle by way of the Empire’s mining trenches was progressing smoothly. Atmospheric pumps brought the air that had sunk beneath back to the surface, the extreme heat of that air as it came back to the surface was currently being put to use for heating purposes all around the base. Kyber from the lowest trenches was being studied but even the deepest trenches only reached fifty kilometers into the lower lithosphere where the rocks were hot. The sides of those mining trenches were in the process of being shored up but mining droids capable of such work required constant maintenance.

“There’s been some suggestion that we use Magmatroopers and--”

Hux started at that idea. “Absolutely not,” he snapped.

JZ-4331 relaxed.

The idea of it was ludicrous. “What idiot made such a suggestion?” Hux demanded. “Who would order we toss **lives** into the fire?”

“General Brendol Hux, sir.”

Hux growled as he looked down over the edge of a catwalk. The faint heat wafting up from beneath spoke of the crack along the equator of the planet, a wound that rent the crust itself in two. Open mantle loomed in the trench below, too cold to glow red but hot enough to sear flesh to a crisp. If, of course, it were possible to survive the fall tens of kilometers to the mantle below.

“I am the Head Engineer in charge of this project and this planet,” Hux said. “You are not required to accept suicidal orders from any member of the First Order military not cleared by me first. Do you understand me?"

"Yes sir." 

"Your entire regiment has been assigned to this project, am I correct?”

“Affirmative, sir.”

“Who oversees your day to day orders?”

JZ-4331 explained their current chain of command. Given the plans for Ilum were still in a design phase they had little to do but preparatory work. Each unit followed the commands of their captain in regards to everyday orders. So long as the work got done on time and to specifications those captains were given a great deal more leeway than they would receive on a Star Destroyer.

“Unless, of course, you feel the need to change that, sir.”

Hux made a noncommittal noise. He’d make his decision after inspecting the current work and meeting with the head geologist.

*****

The buildings used as the command base on Ilum were 600 kilometers away from the mining trenches, built onto exposed traps left over from a previous flood eruption. This one was considered stable; the exposed rocks dated to about 18 million years, long enough for the head geologist to declare the region safe.

Hux would meet with this head geologist later, a Dr. Scott Bescom. He wanted to hear such assurances from the head geologist himself, not filtered through a Stormtrooper who might have missed something. A volcanic eruption was an entirely preventable hazard, managed by not building in a geologically active zone. He wanted to avoid such an embarrassing hazard.

The shuttle trip to the command base was uneventful and he stepped out into Ilum’s frigid sub-habitable air. 

The Stormtrooper legion stood at attention in long lines of white armor against the dark cold basalts and drifting white snow. Weapons stood at the ready as though awaiting inspection. Troopers all stared straight ahead, their helms betraying none of the questioning looks they must be giving Hux right now.

Normally his father would be the one doing these inspections. But that changed now, General Brendol Hux was away on some mission and Captain Armitage Hux wasn’t going to waste the energy thinking about what damage his useless father had already inflicted upon this project. Ilum was his, not his father’s, and his father’s machinations were not going to take this from him.

Captain Hux observed his Stormtroopers, examining their form and their dedication. None of them were outfitted as Snowtroopers and their armor was not rated for cold like this. His own uniform wasn’t rated for cold like this either and he shivered inside his shining black breastplate.

“Company dismissed,” Hux called. 

The Stormtroopers moved in formation, marching perhaps a little faster than regulation back into the warmth of the command building.

“It’s cold,” Hux said as JZ-4331 watched him. “Do we not have Snowtroopers available?”

“Our Snowtroopers are currently on assignment,” JZ-4331 said. “We’re built near one of the cave complexes. The caves can get quite frigid.”

“Have they found anything interesting?”

“I can show you if you’d like.”

Hux nodded. He didn’t know enough about this planet. If he was going to use it he needed to know more.

The speeder was thankfully enclosed, its warm air a welcome respite from the extreme cold of Ilum. There were rumors of life on this planet but Hux wasn’t entirely sure how. Ilum was a snowball world, encased in ice sheets with only a few rocky outcroppings sitting like islands above a kilometers deep ocean of ice. It circled its parent star outside the temperate zone. Volcanic heat and the warmth of underground kyber veins kept some rocky areas of the planet warm enough for life to eke out a living, just enough for photosynthesis to evolve and produce a breathable atmosphere.

The speeder stopped inside a cave, the entrance and first gallery converted into an enclosed speeder station and small barracks. The air was just as cold here as the atmosphere outside but at least that air was still. No wind meant no wind chill. The barracks quartermaster offered a standard issue overcoat and Hux took advantage, ignoring the odd looks from the Snowtroopers that he’d deign to wear their gear.

A Snowtrooper in full armor and thermals stepped forward and introduced herself as JN-2521. “I’ll be your guide for today, Captain,” she said.

Hux nodded and allowed her to take the lead while JZ-4331 stayed behind.

The original cave system had been separated into two main gallery systems. The upper galleries were devoid of kyber crystals, possibly due to over-harvesting. Instead those upper galleries had been used as living quarters and possibly as a temple complex. Food stores were still partially edible after decades of abandonment. Sleeping pallets of Jedi design were rolled up and stored in alcoves sealed off behind sheets of ice-stalactites. The remains of old fires scorched the ceiling of the uppermost gallery. But most striking of all, the walls were covered in graffiti. The names of thousands of dead Jedi graced these walls and were currently being catalogued per the Supreme Leader’s orders.

Then there were the lower galleries.

The lower galleries once had been accessed by a set of crude stairs carved into the stone floor of a long winding passage that descended through solid volcanic rock. JN-2521 explained how the First Order had instead bored shafts and constructed lifts that allowed for direct access to the lower galleries.

“Dr. Otero heads the research group up here,” JN-2521 said as she led Hux into one such lift. “Most of our group are down below.”

“Any hazards I should know about?” Hux asked.

“It’s warmer down below,” JN-2521 said. “Warm enough for water to flow through the rock. The cave is much more active the lower you descend.”

“What kind of activity?”

“Water, rocks, bats, you name it. Whatever you can think of, there’s more of it in the lower galleries.”

The lift descended through solid rock. The dim lighting of the lift hid nothing from Hux’s night eyes. Solid rock gave way to a carved passage on the left. Stone steps sagged under the weight of thousands of years of Jedi feet then curved off and away, out of sight. The carved passage appeared again on the right, steps still descending.

Then the shaft opened into the lower gallery.

The upper galleries had been lit by plasma lamps spaced strategically to make examining the Jedi detritus easier on the anthropologists led by Dr. Otero. But the lower galleries were unlit by artificial light. There was no need.

Kyber crystals jutted from the walls, revealed by centuries of erosion. So many crystals in one place glowed as their energies fed off of one another, all of that pent up potential energy released as heat and light. Their soft glow lent an ethereal quality to the “holy” cave of the Jedi. 

JN-2521 raised her AR and slammed the butt of her rifle into a crystal cluster on the near wall. A chunk the size of a fist loosened from its moorings and dropped to the cavern floor. She picked it up and handed it to Hux.

Hux took the crystal and wrapped his hands around it. It emitted a distinct warmth that felt absolutely divine after the blowing chill of the surface. He purred as he pressed the warm crystal against his face.

“You’re not human, are you,” JN-2521 realized.

“Half,” Hux said. He knew this shouldn’t be news to any trooper in this cave or in the First Order by now. There’d been no hiding his monstrosity, not once the Supreme Leader allowed him to express it. But even if these particular troopers hadn’t heard, Hux saw the nightvision augments built into their helms. The fact that he didn’t need such gear should have been a bigger clue than any sounds he made.

JN-2521 gave a noncommittal sound and began giving a rundown of what the geologists thought about this cavern system.

Basalt was usually resistant to erosion so the presence of this cave was considered unusual. It was possible the cavern system wasn’t due to water erosion at all and was instead caused by some hitherto undiscovered mechanism involving volcanism or a fault line or possibly the kyber crystal itself. Jedi legends were no help in the matter, insisting the caves of Ilum were a ‘vergence’ in the Force and therefore their presence should never be questioned. This led to a theory from Dr. Otero, that this cave had been built by the Jedi in a previous age and the records of that construction lost over time.

According to legends the caves were supposed to be guarded by spirits or the Force or visions. While no such spiritual nonsense had been officially encountered, nobody was allowed to sleep in the lower galleries after reports of ‘weird dreams’. Snowtroopers worked in pairs after someone discovered a sinkhole by stepping in it. All troopers were allowed to keep armed at all times after the first swarm of bats. But other than that, this assignment was depressingly safe. Shiny yet boring.

“So what exactly are your duties down here?” Hux asked once JN-2521 gave the rundown of these caves.

“Occupation,” she said. “We assist Dr. Otero from time to time but he mostly stays in the upper galleries. We’ve collected several kyber samples for Dr. Bescom but that didn’t take an entire squad, these caves are lousy with kyber.”

The sounds of blaster shots and squealing echoed through the cave. The air moved, stirred by the flapping of countless wings so high up in the cave. Hux watched as a flock of bats flowed across the ceiling and then up and out, out through the ancient Jedi passage.

JN-2521’s stance changed as she became visibly nervous. She didn’t quite look at Hux, as though afraid of censure or discipline.

“Target practice,” Hux observed.

“Possibly, sir.” Her tone was perfect, flat and expressionless despite the tension of her stance.

“I approve of target practice,” Hux assured her.

JN-2521 relaxed.

“I got one!” The sounds of a young boisterous Stormtrooper echoed through the cave as he ran up with his kill, a giant bat. “I finally got one! I--” He stopped in horror as he rounded a stalagmite and saw Hux. He attempted to stand at attention, a task made difficult by the AR in one hand and the giant bat in the other. “Sir, I… that is, I…”

“At ease,” Hux drawled. What had his father been doing down here to make the troopers so nervous? “What’s your designation?”

“YT-3494, sir.” He tried to salute but he still held the bat in that hand.

Hux held out his hand for the bat. YT-3494 handed it to him and then saluted properly.

The animal was rather large for a bat. He extended one of its curled wings and found it just over a meter in length. A plasma burn over the left breast betrayed the killing shot. Its small head was mounted on a long neck, its small snout had long teeth like a rodent’s. The large ears lay flat against the head in death but in life would likely flick forward and around to hear its surroundings. It wasn’t a heavy animal, not much heavier than the small helm-sized spiders of Praxis, lean and bony but with a well developed breast under a thick coat of fur.

“Good shot,” Hux praised.

“Th-thank you, sir,” YT-3494 stammered.

“What can you tell me about these bats?”

“Sir?”

“The bats,” Hux repeated. “What’s known about them?”

“They seem to roost among the kyber crystals,” JN-2521 said, rescuing her subordinate. “Most likely for warmth. We believe they eat the seeds of the trees that grow along the surface kyber veins. Should we eradicate them?”

Hux considered the bat in his hand. He hadn’t eaten anything other than the disgusting nutrient slurries from the mess hall since returning from Praxis. He bared titanium teeth, the only warning the two troopers had, before he stuffed the bat’s head in his mouth and bit down. The neck crunched and the head popped off in his mouth. He spat the head like a Hutt, not caring where it landed.

Shock was not something he usually saw on Stormtroopers of any type, Snow or otherwise, and to see it despite full armor made Hux rethink his methods. He took pity on them as he pulled a knife from his sleeve. There was no reason to terrify them all yet by savaging a corpse with his teeth, he’d use his hands like someone civilized. He drew the knife along the midline of the bat from the belly to the top of the neck. He sheathed the knife then dug his fingers under the hide where he’d sliced it open. He pulled and the skin tore from flesh with a disgusting wet sound.

YT-3494 squeaked. Other troopers stopped appearing to be busy and all craned their necks to watch.

Hux started on the neck first, biting off chunks one vertebra wide and crunching the bones noisily. After three vertebrae he stopped, covering his mouth to smother a belch.

“Eradicate them?” he asked. “Why? Are they causing any sort of problems?”

“Not particularly,” JN-2521 said with exaggerated care.

“Then I see no reason not to keep them around for ‘target practice’,” Hux said. He ripped the hide from the bat’s chest. He bared his teeth to hiss before biting into the exposed flesh of the breast. He tore a chunk from the carcass, the muscles tearing along the seams into long tough fibers that hung from his mouth like pasta strands. He purred and nibbled them into his mouth, swallowing heavily.

“And snacks,” JN-2521 drawled.

Hux chuckled as he purred. He licked the blood from his hands and wiped his mouth, then licked his hands again to reclaim what he’d wiped away. “I would not object,” he agreed. He bit the neck again, slicing off another vertebra with his teeth and crunching the bones. He considered the carcass as he chewed before deciding. He folded the wings back, ripping them out of the shoulder sockets, and tore them away from the body. The wings were tossed aside like so much cave trash to be scavenged by the beetles that Hux could see lurking in the cracks of the cave walls.

“Do keep me apprised as to the findings of the anthropologists,” Hux said. “I want copies of all of their research. It’s possible the Jedi left something here aside from sleeping pallets and stale bread.”

“Of course, sir,” JN-2521 said.

“Now if there’s nothing else,” Hux said ominously as he leered down at his dead bat.

JN-2521 retreated, giving Hux some illusion of privacy as he tore into the carcass of the bat. She shook off her nausea at the idea of eating anything like that raw and retreated back down into the lowest galleries where most of her troopers tended to loiter.

How was she going to explain this one to them? ‘The head engineer of this project just ate a bat in front of me’? Unless he could be bribed with dead bats...

No. That idea was too ridiculous to contemplate. Officers couldn’t be bribed with such simple things. Better to stick to bribes of kyber like the elder Hux.

*****

Dr. Bescom stood bouncing on his heels in the empty conference room, his drab gray uniform blending in with the rest of the decor. Samples of kyberite with various stone inclusions sat on the conference table, specimens he found interesting and that might be used to illustrate his theories. His one droid eye glowed yellow, the inner iris rotating to bring each item into focus as he glanced from table to crystals to datapad to the wall mounted holoprojector. His droid hand ached, the nerves misfiring where they connected to the 3rd and 4th fingers. He wore a brace over that hand to keep the nerve misfire from curling those fingers in against his will. Sunbrowned skin spoke of his time outdoors on other worlds and his labcoat shone iridescent with kyber dust.

The kyberite glowed pale blue with his hope. He hoped this Captain Hux would be able to bypass the deadlines imposed by the General Hux and give him more time. He had several hypotheses as to the interior of the planet and its curious richness in emotionally-responsive kyber crystals. He had hypotheses but no solid theories. No facts. He didn’t have enough data for such things.

The door opened and the kyberite all went flat and clear.

Dr. Bescom’s hopes began to fade as the man walked in.

Captain Hux looked like a military man like his father, with his slicked red hair and his fine uniform and his black armor and his just-eaten look of physical contentment. His face wasn’t much better, the sneer of someone whose time was too important to waste on the minutiae of such grand projects as this.

It didn’t even register as important that Captain Hux wasn’t human. Human, non, whatever, all military men were the same. Unyielding. Demanding facts without data. Cruel.

“Captain Armitage Hux,” Hux said, introducing himself.

“Dr. Scott Bescom.”

Hux gestured for the doctor to sit as he took his own seat. The two stormtroopers at the door stood at their posts, preventing entry or escape.

“What can you tell me about this planet?” Hux asked.

Dr. Bescom launched into the basics of the planet. It was a superterra with twice the mass of Coruscant. It didn’t currently have plate tectonics, there were no plate boundaries, but it had a multitude of volcanic hot spots capable of devastating supereruptions. The youngest magmatic province dated to less than 2 million years old though it was almost thoroughly mined out by the Empire’s trenches.

“Thus it’s my hypothesis that kyberite is an igneous rock,” Dr. Bescom said. “Other than that, very little is known about its formation. The Jedi kept their knowledge secret. All Imperial research on the subject has been on its use in industrial, mechanical, and military matters. I would like to get better data on the interior of Ilum but I have been unable to collect much.”

“You can’t use seismographic tomography?” Hux asked.

Dr. Bescom paused and stared. That… had been a science question. Never before had a military man asked him a science question. “Um, no,” he admitted. “Without plate tectonics Ilum is incapable of generating the earthquakes I need for such a study.”

“And I suppose the eventual collapse of the mining trenches as the mantle fills in will take too many millions of years,” Hux mused.

“Hundreds of thousands at most, but your point is valid.”

Hux nodded and Dr. Bescom was amazed. He’d corrected this captain and the captain agreed? What kind of military man was he?

“So what do you need?” Hux asked. “Can we assume Ilum is an ordinary iron-nickel core superterra with a carbon-silicate-oxide mantle?”

“We can assume that,” Dr. Bescom allowed. “What I need are some good seismic waves. I need to ring this planet like a bell. We have placed seismic stations along strategic points all around the planet to observe seismic waves that travel through the planet in order to get data on its interior but Ilum lacks the earthquakes I need. Explosions have been attempted at the behest of General Hux but they’ve all been too small to give me any real data.”

“You need something bigger than a fusion grenade,” Hux agreed, contemplating.

“Much. Now, I have some kyberite samples here, including some deep trench samples, and I’ve noticed something very interesting.”

Dr. Bescom removed the brace from his droid hand and stretched the spasming fingers. He regained control over it after a few experimental grasps at nothing before he picked up one of the deepest trench samples. The milky white crystal glowed faintly to the touch, his hope shining back through. He held the kyber crystal in the palm of his hand and then squeezed. A creak and then a crack betrayed the crystal’s failure as it cleaved in three pieces. He opened his hand.

“Kyber crystal has a hardness of 5 on the Mohs Standard Scale,” Dr. Bescom said with pride at his discovery.

“I knew it was a fairly low density crystal but I never knew they were fragile,” Hux said, musing. “Would you be able to pick up deposits within the planet using seismic tomography?”

“If they’re large enough,” Dr. Bescom allowed. “But they’d have to be pretty big. Crystals the size of a mountain. I also remind you, kyber anywhere below the lithosphere is unreachable even with the best mining equipment. The asthenosphere is too fluid to try and mine with any margin of safety. Anything below that is physically impossible.”

“Understood,” Hux said, considering. He paused in thought before jumping topics. “Does it have to be an earthquake?”

“For what?”

“Seismic tomography. Does it have to be an earthquake? How large do your explosions need to be?”

Dr. Bescom snorted. “General Hux already denied my request for a series of nuclear detonations.”

“I don’t need a nuclear option,” Hux drawled. “What about an asteroid impact?”

The stormtroopers on guard both looked over with something akin to interest in their stances. Dr. Bescom felt that same interest as the kyber crystals in the room all seemed to glow a pale orange. “This will take a great deal of planning,” he allowed. “The logistics, the physics, the preparations, the asteroid! Do you know of one? Or did you have one in mind?”

Hux sat back in his seat and grinned with titanium fangs. “That depends on what you need,” he purred.

“I’ll have to get back to you on that.”

“Send your requests directly to me,” Hux ordered. “Nobody else needs to know yet.”

“Of course.”

This meeting was turning out to be the best of his career. He was going to get to slam an asteroid into a planet solely as a data collection exercise and he wasn’t in trouble for suggesting it.

Perhaps this Head Engineer would be a better military liaison than the previous one.


	2. Proof of Concept

Captain Hux stood before the assembled legion of Stormtroopers and Snowtroopers. They filled the main hangar of Ilum’s command building. Dusty TIE fighters hung in racks, unused and poorly maintained. A Utility Tug sat on ship jacks, techs working to bring it back to functionality. Scientists in lab coats and technician uniforms stood along one wall, none of them feeling welcome in the military setting.

Hux took a deep breath and began to speak.

“This planet is the end and the beginning. The end to the chaos inflicted upon the galaxy by the decadent New Republic and it’s impotent Senate. The beginning of a new order built upon the rule of law.

“This planet was a secret kept by the Jedi. Their selfish greed kept this planet off of starmaps and away from those who might have benefited from its resources. The Empire used what they could but never cracked its secrets. Those secrets are why we’re here today.

“This planet’s secrets are no match for the ingenuity of the First Order. Today your efforts are no longer squandered on its barren surface nor lost in its depths. Together we will lay this planet’s secrets bare to the scrutiny of science and the benefit of all.”

Hux could feel the room shifting, growing bored. He understood their frustrations, his father had likely made similar pretty yet useless promises before. But he had more than mere words at his disposal.

“As we speak, a 500 meter wide asteroid is being pulled into position. When we are ready it will be sent to impact this planet’s barren surface.”

That got the legion’s attention. The scientists stood up straight, pulling away from the edges of the hangar to get a better view. The technicians working the Utility Tug stopped their work, crawling out from underneath ship jacks to stand and listen.

“No one here will be asked to give their lives. No one here will be sent to danger without full knowledge of what you might face. But the secrets of this planet, the secrets of Ilum will be laid bare with as much force as is required. Today’s asteroid impact is but the first. There will be more. There will be as many as it takes.”

Scientists all watched the geology team and Dr. Bescom. The kyber dust in his labcoat shone, staining his form a faint gleeful red which lent a bloody glow to his blinding grin and hungry eyes. The rest of the geology team didn’t look much better as they bounced on the balls of their feet and gazed up in adoration.

“This first strike will impact sector G-8 at a velocity of 12.1 kilometers per second. Simulations predict it will throw ejecta to a range of five hundred kilometers from the impact site. Seismographs in sectors G-4, G-11, G-5, and G-12 will all be active during the impact. Should any of you wish to volunteer to man these sites, please see Dr. Bescom before 1300 hours today. I guarantee you, the view from those sites should be spectacular.”

A smattering of nervous fidgeting among the Stormtroopers betrayed their own thoughts on the matter. A few of them glanced at the delighted scientists then quickly away. Several more all gazed up at their feral commander, wondering whether his takeover of the project represented a reward or a punishment.

“Any who do not wish to stay on this planet during the impact will be evacuated up to the _Locutor_ . Any who wish to watch the explosion from orbit are encouraged to do so from the observation deck of the _Locutor_. Duties will resume on Ilum after the impact has concluded.”

Stormtroopers glanced at one another. Captain Hux had just given them something they’d never had before, the opportunity to retreat from the front line. It even came with a reward, the ability to watch the planet be hit with a large object. He… understood…

Hux purred under his breath as he dismissed them all. Troop transports awaited outside for what he assumed would be most of the assembled legion. After all, asteroid strikes were a rarity in the civilized galaxy. Automated defense systems defended most planets from such natural hazards. Stories of extinctions, lost colonies, and ancient wars still littered the bedtime stories among the Stormtrooper cadres, cautionary tales about allowing rocks to fall from the sky.

None of them had ever seen an asteroid strike.

Now they were about to watch one up close. More than one. This was only the first.

*****

Commandant Stiles sat with a cup of caf in the officer’s lounge onboard the _Locutor_. He scrolled through the messages in his datapad with one hand, bypassing the ones that looked uninteresting or required no action on his part. A previously approved request for three troop transports to ferry Stormtroopers from and then back to Ilum’s surface. Another previously approved request for a half dozen Utility Tugs to be assigned to the comet cloud beyond Ilum for some project, duration unknown. A vague proposal for experiments on Ilum written by Captain Hux and signed off on by the Supreme Leader.

The Commandant opened that one. The proposal was somehow both dense and vague, almost as though it was purposefully obtuse. Something about ‘seismic tomography’ and ‘atmospheric effects’ and ‘proof of concept’ and ‘minimal collateral damage’.

He took a sip of caf and instead looked out the window.

The pale white crescent of Ilum shone in the wan light from Asar, Ilum’s distant white sun. The few Star Destroyers that made up the core of the First Order command structure orbited around Ilum for reasons he still didn’t comprehend. The Supreme Leader had his own flagship and a separate secret base of operations far from here, why didn’t the First Order fleet follow his example? Instead they were posted around this empty barely-living world like they were guarding it.

At least the posting here was safe. Nothing ever happened. Ilum was a static, known quantity. A peaceful world. He enjoyed watching it orbit below while on his breaks to ease the tensions of rebuilding the Stormtrooper program, the rigors of assembling spacedocks for new construction, and the stresses of command.

He took another sip of caf and--

A bright flash bloomed against the limb of Ilum’s crescent. A bubble of bright white and orange and poisonous gray blossomed like a wart, spreading in a tiny shockwave to flow across the planet’s surface. 

Hot caf spilled down his uniform jacket as his mouth fell open mid-drink. The cup dropped from his hand to clatter onto the deck. He gawked as the explosion subsided, or was that an explosion? It looked almost like…

No…

No!

There was no possible way an asteroid could have gotten past the orbital defenses! Had they malfunctioned? Was it sabotage? Were they under attack?! Something horrifying must have happened! He ran from the lounge, tearing through the ship to the lift. He had to get to the bridge.

The lift opened onto a completely calm bridge and Stiles skidded to a stop. It didn’t make any sense! This ship should be at the highest of alert stations, all tech crews attempting to determine **how** an asteroid got through the orbital defenses and how many hazards there were. Instead General Pryde stood overlooking his crew with a deep scowl of frustrated contempt.

Stiles didn’t have to say anything, his utter shock and terror spoke volumes. Pryde read those volumes and pointed to the figure standing at the transparisteel viewport.

Ilum’s crescent slowly expanded as the _Locutor_ orbited the planet below. The billow of ejecta from the impact spread across the surface, marring a circle nearly a thousand kilometers across with the glowing red crater sitting at the center. The figure watching stood tall and lean and nowhere near as human as it pretended to be. No human being would do something like this.

Captain Hux’s purr could be heard all across the bridge.

Commandant Stiles shivered as he heard it and realized what must have happened. This was done on purpose. That monster _planned this!_ He grabbed that fury as it rose, shielding himself with it as he strode across the bridge to the Captain.

“You!” Stiles shouted.

Captain Hux turned and Stiles almost lost his anger. He’d never seen the younger Hux like this, metal teeth bared in triumph, eyes turned solid black in primal glee. He swore he could see spots flush across Hux’s cheeks like the markings of an animal.

“You did this,” Stiles accused.

“I had permission,” Hux purred. Then he turned away, back to the image of marred Ilum.

The fury bled further away, turning to shock. “On whose authority! Who in the First Order has the authority to give you permission for--for--” He pointed to the Ilum and the cloud of impact ejecta and ignored how his hand trembled.

Hux kept purring as the carnage unfolded below. That purr blended into a hiss as he turned on Stiles, eyes black and teeth glistening. “Not jussst one,” Hux promised. “Asss many asss it takesss! Thisss wasss jussst the prrroof of consssept, to show it can be done, it **should** be done! It **will** be done and there’sss nothing you can do to ssstop me!”

“You can’t…” Stiles backed away from the monster before him. He could feel the bridge crew resolutely not watching him as he retreated from this creature that dared wear the face of a man.

“‘Do what mussst be done’,” Hux mocked. “The Sssuprrreme Leader’sss own wordsss to me…” He approached, slowly and deliberately stalking Stiles as the man retreated.

Stiles backed up to the aft sensor pit and lost his balance. He dropped to the deck to avoid the fall into the pit, scrambling away on hands and rear as the monster kept coming for him. Stiles held it’s attention and he didn’t want it, he wanted nothing more than to escape this feral monstrosity that had already proven its propensity for cannibalism.

Hux didn’t notice the ejecta cloud that slowly faded below them. The tiny pinprick of angry red crater in the middle didn’t interest him. He had something else to hold his attention now. Hux sniffed audibly, scenting Stiles, smelling his fear, as he dropped to his own hands and feet, crouching and creeping and purring and drooling as he swayed and slithered like an animal about to pounce.

“Sir, preliminary data is coming through.”

Stiles had no idea which technician said it but he would have given them whatever name they wanted for distracting Hux. The monster didn’t even rise to its feet as it bounded off, cavorting like an excited dog before he jumped into the sensor pit with the technician. Hux purred over the data, hands curled around the technician’s shoulders as he watched the numbers flooding in with that same feral hunger.

Stiles took the opportunity to scramble to his feet and flee to General Pryde. Pryde looked him up and down with a sneer and Stiles wanted to punch him. Pryde had no right to judge him a coward, not until he too had faced down that beast with its eyes full of hunger. Stiles straightened his uniform, ignored the cold wet caf still washed down his front, and left the bridge with his head held high.

He returned to the officer’s lounge to retrieve his datapad. He had a terrible feeling about the proposal the Supreme Leader had approved. He resolved to read the thing regardless of how dense or obtuse it felt.

Hours later the stench of cold caf from his jacket made him nauseous. That had to be it. It had nothing to do with the proposal he’d read, the one that called for multiple asteroid impacts into Ilum’s surface. The entire planet would be probed with sound in this manner, Ilum’s screams somehow interpreted to determine the structure of its insides. By the Force, there must already be a dozen asteroids in holding orbits already, each waiting to be dragged to its doom against Ilum’s ice sheets. And the culmination, the largest one…

Somehow the Supreme Leader had agreed to this.

There was no way this could end well.

*****

The shuttle rumbled as it landed. TT-1098 coaxed the shuttle into an uneasy landing among the rubble and loose debris. TK-1959 and RX-3081 stayed in the back with Hux, Dr. Bescom, and a dozen Stormtroopers. The troopers in their white armor glanced nervously at the sleek black armor of the Hounds and the matching black armor that Captain Hux wore. The only thing that separated him from the other Hounds were the captain’s bars on his right pauldron as he pulled on his helmet and gestured for everyone else to do the same.

Even Dr. Bescom pulled on his helmet. His field kit involved a modified Stormtrooper helm, gauntlets, breastplate, and boots, tool belt, lab coat, and a full geology tool kit ready for sample analysis and collection.

The Stormtroopers had all volunteered to carry various instruments. There were few enough instruments that two men could easily handle them but all those present wanted to see the impact site for themselves.

The quiet susurring of enclosed breathing apparatuses hissed through the shuttle as the ramp opened onto the ejecta field.

“What do we expect to find, Captain?” TK-1959 asked.

“Dr. Bescom?” Hux prompted.

Dr. Bescom bounced on the soles of his boots as the kyber dust in his lab coat glowed pale orange with excitement. “From the initial data the Tug pilots had impeccable aim,” he praised. “The asteroid hit the exact rocky plateau we wanted and now we have a whole new crater to explore! Of course we can’t yet, the crater floor is probably still molten but we can take measurements from here on size and temperature and samples thrown up from the bedrock.”

“We’re picking up rocks,” RX-3081 realized.

“We're picking up rocks,” Hux agreed.

RX-3081 moved to head back into the shuttle to wait with TT-1098. Instead Hux grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the shuttle with the rest of them as they surveyed the blasted landscape for the first time.

The ground still steamed beneath the hot debris that crunched under their feet. Tiny spherules of stone ground under their boots like glass beads, spherules of shocked quartz that had Dr. Bescom scooping samples into vials as his lab coat shone.

A Stormtrooper checked his instrument and jumped. “Sir, should Dr. Bescom be out here? He’s not wearing full armor.”

“It is quite warm out here, isn’t it,” Dr. Bescom said cheerfully.

Hux checked the trooper’s readings; they showed the local air temperature far above the normal human range of function. While 60 degrees Centigrade wouldn’t be immediately fatal it did mean they couldn’t stay out here long unless in full armor.

“It should be much warmer closer to the impact site,” Dr. Bescom said.

“Do you expect anything special about the ejecta closer to the impact?” Hux asked.

“I expect it will be bigger. It’s unlikely the impact reached down into anything truly unique, unless it hit a kyber vein of course.”

“We can explore for kyber samples after the crater cools, Doctor.”

TK-1959 scanned the horizon, watching the ground shimmer closer to the crater. They were so close, the view from the shuttle put it just beyond that ridge in the distance. Or maybe that ridge was the crater rim itself. The idea made him giddy with excitement; this was only the first test impact. There were two more test impacts planned of this size, one onto an ice sheet and one to land in the mining trench itself. From there the impacts would get bigger and bigger and then…

He felt lightheaded for a second. This was the largest weapon he’d ever seen this close and this barely counted! It was just throwing rocks, a variant of the old ‘Rods From the Void’ technique he’d learned in history lessons.

He felt a hand against his backplate. TK-1959 turned to find RX-3081 looking at him. Somehow his blank black helm looked concerned. “You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” TK-1959 sighed. “It’s just… This is the biggest boom I’ve ever seen this close.”

RX-3081 pounded him on the backplate, concern faded. “They’ll get so much bigger, you’ll see.”

“And we get to watch them all.”

RX-3081 could hear the stupid grin on TK-1959’s face. He figured the smaller man would be fine and instead headed off on his own.

Stormtroopers waved instruments at things in an attempt to look or perhaps feel important. Captain Hux hovered over Dr. Bescom as though waiting for the less armored man to collapse from heat exhaustion. The scientist’s kyber-dusted lab coat shimmered in all the colors of his emotions, from orange glee to red lust to blue hope and a growing vein of stubborn green determination. That streak of sickly green felt like a time limit, like it represented his mind fighting against its own tolerances as his body slowly gave in to the oppressive fatal heat.

RX-3081 walked along the rubble, nudging at rocks with his black boots. Basalt shimmered strange colors much like kyber, shining in the pale white light of Asar. Spherules of quartz rolled and shifted like hot sand, fouling his steps like a soft beach. He pulled his foot free but the sand seemed to stretch and soften all around him. He couldn’t gain his footing as it roiled each time he stepped, sliding underneath him as he lost his balance.

RX-3081 fell to his hands and knees. His hands sank down into the sand, sliding down under him. He looked up for the others but there was no one there, the shuttle was gone, nothing but shining beads of perfect spherical sand grains that shimmered in waves of orange and red and blue and green and green and green--

His hand closed around something and--

RX-3081 felt a hand on his shoulder pauldron. “Hey, are **you** okay?” TK-1959 asked.

The sand field was gone. The only shimmer came from the scientist’s lab coat that glowed monotonous with sickly green and dull gray sweat stains as he argued with Hux over staying longer. RX-3081 knelt on the debris field, basalt chunks and shocked quartz strewn around him, his hands pressed against the ground. The shuttle was right there. Stormtroopers watched what went on around them with a sense of impotent confusion, as though they didn’t know what to do without orders.

“I’m fine,” RX-3081 said.

“You tripped,” TK-1959 said in a tone that allowed for no argument.

“Yeah. I tripped.” RX-3081 didn’t look at him, instead allowing the lie to cover the truth. He looked down at his gloved hands. One hand closed around a rock. He picked it up to find a crystal spindle the length and width of three fingers. It was pure, clear, perfect, and he’d never seen it before. Light shone through it perfectly from one angle and not at all from another, distorting along some internal axis that didn’t make sense, that didn’t have to make sense.

“Kyber,” TK-1959 observed. “This planet’s lousy with kyber.”

RX-3081 nodded. He closed his gloved fist over the crystal before slipping it into a compartment on his belt.

He got to his feet and they both returned to the shuttle as Hux carried their semiconscious scientist on board.

*****

Commandant Stiles scowled from the officer’s lounge as Ilum’s surface blossomed in a tiny fireball. This time he wasn’t alone. Junior officers crowded all around him, behind him, trying to see past him. They didn’t dare jostle him as they all shoved at each other to get a better look at the newest asteroid impact to rupture Ilum’s desolate calm.

Three decks below, the observation deck erupted in cheers and chaotic shouting. The Stormtroopers celebrated as only Stormtroopers could, knocking their helmets together and pounding on each other’s armor as they watched ridiculously large explosions from the safety of orbit where they could see every little detail unfold below them.

On Ilum those Stormtroopers who volunteered to stay behind watched from behind blast shields within durasteel bunkers. Sensors recorded the rumble outside and below as seismic waves bounced through the crust and down into the planet itself. The sensors would each run for three cycles, collecting data the entire time as Ilum shook and shuddered and rang like a bell, as her secrets opened up to the relentless pounding of asteroids.

On the bridge General Pryde watched in horrified disgust as the monster responsible for all of this paced at the main viewport while making that ridiculous purring sound. The non-human beast barely maintained a bipedal form, using its hands to jump and crawl and lurk in and out of sensor pits. It had the sensor crew on its side as it tempted them with science that shouldn’t be necessary, experiments that shouldn’t be done. It had the tech crew on its side, involving them in technical discussions before revealing what and why it did these terrible things. Of course it had the scientists on its side, those not involved in this project surely wanted its approval for their own mad experiments. With Brendol missing no one could contain the rabid beast.

None of this would have happened if Brendol were here. Where was he?


	3. Search and Rescue

The caves under Ilum were full of shouting and activity. Snowtroopers mingled with Stormtroopers in the frigid caves as they prepared for something big.

Crates were being strapped down to themselves. Bracing pylons were being considered and hoisted into place then considered again. Stormtroopers carried armloads of kyber from the cavern walls to a holding area where they could be transferred to the surface. 

Dr. Bescom scowled at all of it. His lab coat glowed a faint purple with his annoyance. That glow infected the kyber around him, bathing the entire central cavern a soft purple glow. 

Captain Hux surveyed the preparations as Dr. Bescom scowled. He checked and double checked the datapad in his hands, holding it far from his face as he squinted to read the text. It blurred in the low light, the letters looking smudged.

“This is entirely unnecessary,” Bescom grumbled.

“I’d rather overprepare than underprepare, Doctor,” Hux said absently.

“Seismic waves won’t affect the superstructure of these caverns,” Bescom whined. “It’s a pressure wave! It’ll feel like a puff of air moving through the cave, nothing more.” He paused to consider and purple turned blue. “It would be most interesting to have someone stay down here during the main event. I’m sure feeling the pressure of the shock wave would be amazing.”

“You’re not staying down here,” Hux said.

Blue turned back to purple.

“I wouldn’t object to leaving automatic equipment down here,” Hux allowed. He tried turning the datapad upside down, convinced he must be reading it wrong. No, that didn’t help either. “Droids, a seismic station, pressure sensors, whatever you need.” He vaguely noticed the purple flash to blue then pale white-orange.

A faint squeal and the sound of blasters echoed through the cavern. Fluttering wings flowed across the ceiling then out through the old Jedi passages.

Hux scowled at the datapad and resigned himself to reading it later once he had enough light to focus on close in tiny text. He could see the bats on the ceiling and the pitfalls the Stormtroopers roped off for safety but he couldn’t read a datapad in the dark and that annoyed him.

A Stormtrooper approached with a dead bat. He held it out proudly as though expecting praise.

“Designation?” Hux asked.

“TZ-0388,” he said.

Hux took the offered bat and considered it. He wouldn’t have to pretend to read his datapad if his hands were full. And he could always appreciate skipping a meal of nutrient slurry. He pulled the neck taut with both hands, bared his teeth, and bit into the neck of the deal animal. He ripped out a chunk of the neck and lapped up the blood that dripped out.

TZ-0388 stood still and focused as Hux licked the bloody neck until the blood flow stopped. He then brought both hands into it, tearing the skin open.

“Report, then,” Hux said.

“Sir?” TZ-0388 asked, audibly distracted.

Hux refused to feel self-conscious. If his stormtroopers wanted to feel disgust or distraction by his eating habits then they could learn to send someone who wouldn’t be so affected. 

“Report,” Hux snapped.

“Sir! Yes sir.” TZ-0388 snapped to attention. “Sorry sir. Preparations are proceeding as planned. The lower galleries should be ready for the next impact event on schedule.”

Hux considered his tone. That wasn’t disgust in his voice, it was… fascination? He grabbed the neck of the bat in his teeth and continued pulling, snapping the wings out of their sockets at the shoulder and tearing them off with the bat’s hide. He felt himself drooling as he did, unable to stop himself at the taste of so much fresh meat in his mouth ready to be devoured. As he suspected, TZ-0388 went quiet and watched with distinct fascination in his stance. 

Hux peeled the hide off of the carcass, ripping it off with a savagery that made him purr. He tossed it to the side, heedless of the activity around him. He almost didn’t notice the Stormtrooper that picked up the refuse and tossed it into a pitfall.

Hux pulled the carcass out of his mouth, bloody drool coating his chin, down his standard issue Snowtrooper overcoat, dripping onto the cave floor. “Any damage to the caves in the previous impacts?”

“Nothing major,” TZ-0388 said, his distraction evident in the distinct pause between words. He cleared his throat and focused on a point behind Hux’s shoulder. “Dr. Otero has some choice words but the lower galleries were unaffected by any of the earthquakes.”

“Of course, none of the previous impacts have produced earthquakes on a truly global scale,” Hux mused.

“I dunno, the guys who manned the stations last time said the quakes were pretty good,” TZ-0388 said.

Hux purred, teeth bared in a devious grin. The blood and drool did not help matters. “The next ones will be better,” he promised before taking the first real bite of the bat. He tore the head off with his teeth and spat it away. He then sheared off an entire vertebra and its musculature, cracking and crunching the bones in his carnassial teeth. He swallowed heavily before shearing off the next vertebra and then the next.

“Should you be eating that?” Dr. Bescom asked. “It’s not even cooked. You don’t know where it’s been. I don’t even know what they eat.”

Hux swallowed heavily, his throat rattling as he craned his neck to force the wad of meat and bone down his esophagus. “I know what animal it was, Doctor,” Hux said. “That puts it above and beyond the rations I get on board the _Locutor_.”

Hux rolled his eyes at the confused look Dr. Bescom gave him. It was a look he was familiar with, the look of ‘but aren’t you an officer?’ as though that meant he had access to nice things. “I am a carnivore on a ship of humans,” he said, enunciating to make sure he got his meaning across. “That means I take what I can get.”

Dr. Bescom nodded. “Fair enough,” he said. He had the look of someone who was dropping the conversation now but would remember it later.

“Captain Hux, sir.” Another Stormtrooper came up with a dead bat in her hand. JN-2521 visibly deflated when she saw Hux already had one, as though disappointed he wouldn’t accept another.

Hux had no such compunction, nor would he be governed by any idea of moderation. He purred and held out his bloody hand, accepting this offering as well.

JN-2521 straightened up and handed him the dead bat. “Message for you from the command base,” she reported. “You and your Hounds are being sent on a priority mission. Details will be provided after you return to the _Locutor_.”

Hux gave Dr. Bescom a tired look while the geologist scowled. “Oversee the preparations,” he ordered. JN-2521 saluted and took over watching Stormtroopers stack and move things like they knew what they were doing.

Hux retreated to the lift that returned him to the main staging level. The speeder station was bustling with activity, supplies and personnel actively being transferred from the kyber caves to the command base only a few kilometers distant. The main hatch to the station was open and Hux stood just inside, watching the snow blow across Ilum’s barren surface as he ate. He pulled a knife to draw it along the bat’s belly then carefully pulled out the intestines. The offal was tossed outside to freeze in the snow as he devoured the rest of the animal.

Bats fluttered in the forest that ran along the kyber vein, darting from tree to tree as they picked at the tree’s cones for seeds. Small furry animals hopped in the snow, their white fur rendering them nearly invisible in the glare. A distant larger animal lurked in the trees, its disdainful gaze making it difficult to tell if it were food or competition.

A large transport roared in the distance as it landed at the command base. Supplies for the extra seismic stations, Hux hoped. Maybe the new volunteers Hux had asked for out of the Technician Corps. The Stormtroopers were growing surprisingly eager to lend their hands to this project but they weren’t scientists and many of them had no technical training. There was only so much heavy lifting that needed to be done for a project such as this.

Already the project was giving results. Ilum was an iron-nickel core superterra. It had a silicate mantle and iron core like many other rocky planets of its type. The core was interesting, though, the few core-penetrating P-waves that had been detected implied something unexpected, an area of relatively low density between 3 and 8 thousand kilometers across inside the solid inner iron core. But they didn’t have enough data yet to really know what it meant.

They needed more data.

In a holding orbit above Ilum and above the First Order fleet, a series of comets orbited Ilum like new moons. Their long shining tails betrayed their locations. The largest was visible from the surface even during the day, its long tail arcing like a warning flare across the sky. All of them were visible at night and from space, little dancing balls of ice that taunted those who opposed him.

Hux hoped that would be all the data he needed.

He finished ripping the meat from the bat carcass and tossed the few bones left into the snow. He never could bring himself to eat the little bat feet, too strange. He stuffed the second bat into his belt by the neck, tried to wipe the frozen drool from his face, and made his way back inside.

He couldn’t put this off any longer. He returned his bloody overcoat to the quartermaster and allowed an escort to ferry him back to the command base. 

His Hounds were being called for a mission.

*****

All eight Hounds in black armor assembled in Simulation Room 23. Captain Hux wore his own black armor, a full set with Captain’s bars on the right pauldron to denote his rank. He held his own helm in his gloved hands and the neural amplifier behind his ear. He shifted his helm to one hand and raised the other. A starmap filled the room, focusing on one single planet orbiting a single star.

“This is Parnassos,” Hux said. “About 180 years ago it was colonized by the Con Star Mining Corporation. The planet was mismanaged within a century and they abandoned their venture there. The official story is a nuclear meltdown at a mining facility destroyed the entire planet’s ecosystem.”

“Wait,” JN-1301 realized.

“Yes, there isn’t a fission reactor yet designed that can cause that much damage,” Hux agreed. “Fusion reactors cannot be mismanaged to that degree, it’s physically impossible. That much antimatter would have taken millennia to produce under known conditions. Hypermatter reactors aren’t used planetside and wouldn’t cause the damage found on this scale. It’s more likely Con Star glassed the surface for some reason they refuse to acknowledge. Regardless, the planet suffered an extinction level event caused by the resultant nuclear winter.”

“What’s the mission?” SK-0331 asked.

“Search and rescue,” Hux said. “We’ve received a distress signal from a First Order expedition. We’ve been assigned the _Absolution_ for the duration of this mission.”

TT-1098 lost a personal battle with gravity and landed heavily on the floor with a clatter of armor.

Hounds removed their helms and Hux could see the looks of utter shock on their faces.

“You mean we’re being assigned **to** the _Absolution_ ,” FN-2304 said. It sounded very much like he wanted it to be a question.

Hux grinned. “No, the _Absolution_ is ours,” he purred. “The _Absolution_ is one of the new _Resurgent_ -class Star Destroyers. She does not yet have a commanding officer. We’ve been ordered to take her out on a shakedown run before her maiden mission. We’re taking her out with a skeleton crew and will give her back once we’re finished.”

“Why do we need a Star Destroyer?” TK-1959 asked, unable to hide the awe in his voice. “Who are we rescuing and who do we have to fight to get there?”

“Parnassos has an orbital defense grid,” Hux said calmly. That calm turned sour as he sneered his contempt at the second part of his answer. “We’re being sent to rescue my father.”

FN-2304 snorted. “With your own Star Destroyer,” he drawled. “Oh Daddy will be so mad.”

“I don’t like him,” FR-2116 said.

GR-8758 snorted and TK-1959 giggled.

“Do you really think we’ll need a Star Destroyer to punch through an orbital defense grid?” RX-3081 asked. “Is it that robust?”

“It shot down the _Alpha Imperialis_ ,” Hux said. Of course his father had been out flying that flashy Nubian pleasure yacht, if only because it was a replica of the one that belonged to the Emperor. He watched his Hound’s expressions slowly turn more guarded as they realized what that ship had been and what it represented.

FN-2304 sneered. “No wonder you’ve been given a Star Destroyer,” he said. “The General lost the _Alpha Imperialis_ , it’s a wonder we’re rescuing him at all.”

“While I have been given leave to take my time in rescuing him, I do have other projects underway,” Hux said. “We’ll transfer to the _Absolution_ at the end of Gamma Shift and determine our timeline from there.” While he considered it a few shining red lines shot across the starmap around them all, tracing various hyperspace routes from Ilum to Parnassos. The direct lines faded as more circuitous routes brightened, routes that both added pointless extra days to their journey and kept the Star Destroyer away from major hyperspace lanes and large population centers. After all, this was a _Resurgent_ -class vessel, the second produced after the _Resurgent_ itself. An ordinary Star Destroyer accidentally seen in the galaxy wasn’t a disaster. A new model might give the New Republic something to concern themselves with.

The First Order wasn’t ready to face down the New Republic’s chaos yet. Not yet.

Brendol could wait a few days. For the good of the Order.

*****

The _Absolution_ was a gigantic vessel. 

TT-1098 steered the Lambda shuttle _Fenris_ toward the _Resurgent_ -class Star Destroyer, the second in its production line. Its durasteel hull looked black in the bright white light of Asar, black as visual camouflage against the emptiness of space. Her bridge sat low against her hull, protected by her broad bulk. She bristled with weapons, including two triple-barrelled heavy cannons, eight heavy turrets protecting the bridge, ion cannons and turbolasers as far as the eye could see.

TT-1098 lazily skimmed the dorsal surface of the beautiful black ship below them, giving them all an eyeful. Hux sat in the co-pilot’s seat while seven more Hounds all crowded the cockpit to get a look at their new ship. A Star Destroyer all for themselves. A new model Star Destroyer. Even if they only had her for a few days, the point was _they had her_. 

Gigantic engines at the back boasted impressive power and the reactor under her belly thrummed with life.

“She’s three kilometers long,” Hux marvelled. “One and a half wide at her base. Half a kilometer tall.”

“Twice the length of the _Locutor_ ,” FN-2304 murmured.

“Or anything else in the First Order fleet,” RX-3081 agreed. 

“I wonder if she can be rigged for silent running,” TK-1959 mused.

“Unlikely at this size,” Hux said. “Unnecessary for hyperspace. Nobody’s figured out reliable hyperspace tracking yet.”

RX-3081 pulled his eyes from the _Absolution_ and instead glared at Hux.

“It’s just a side project,” Hux said defensively. “Something to work on in my spare time.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way but I’m glad you’re on our side, sir,” TK-1959 said.

TT-1098 pulled up and circled around, flying back over the _Absolution_ ’s nose as she opened a comm. “ _Absolution_ , this is the _Fenris_ , requesting permission to come aboard.”

“ _Fenris_ , this is the _Absolution_. Permission granted.”

TT-1098 eased the shuttle toward the open hangar on the _Absolution_ ’s belly. The bright ring of active forcefield held her atmosphere in against the vacuum of space. The Lambda felt dwarfed by the giant Star Destroyer as TT-1098 folded the wings, entered atmosphere, and landed the _Fenris_ gracefully on the hangar deck.

Hounds pulled their helms on and Captain Hux held his own. TT-1098 secured the shuttle and pulled her own helm on before lowering the main ramp.

It was time to meet their new temporary crew.

Captain Hux led his tiny squad of eight Hounds out of the Lambda to a nearly empty hangar. An Atmospheric Assault Lander sat open with parts strewn about. TIE racks hung empty. Three squads of 20 Stormtroopers made up the entirety of the contingent currently on duty in the hangar. A few hundred technicians mulled about like they weren’t sure why they had to be here when there was work they could be doing instead.

Two Majors in blue uniforms walked up and they did not look happy. They saluted and scowled at the Captain’s bars on Hux’s black armor. “Welcome aboard, Captain,” one drawled and he clearly did not mean those words.

“Gentlemen,” Hux said, allowing a slight purr into his voice. “I’ve been instructed to take command of this ship for the time being.”

“We are aware,” the other Major said, scowling.

“Are you aware of our mission, then?” Hux asked.

“Shakedown run.”

“Search and rescue,” Hux corrected. “Someone has foolishly lost the _Alpha Imperialis_ and I have to go rescue him and anyone else who's managed to survive him.”

The Majors stopped scowling.

“You’ll get your ship back as soon as I’m done with her, I promise you that,” Hux allowed, still with that slight purr. “Until then, perhaps you’d like to show her to me. I’ve never seen one of the new _Resurgent_ -class vessels before.”

The Majors looked at each other and Hux wondered if they were twins. Even up close they looked the same, the same hair, the same eyes, the same expression that went thoughtful then turned to something akin to quiet pride. “Of course,” the first Major said. 

“We’ll show you around ourselves,” the second Major said.

“Follow us,” the first Major said.

Hux followed, indicating for his Hounds to join them. The Majors led them on the long walk out of the hangar bay.

“We didn’t get your names,” GR-8758 called.

“Raan. Major Raan.” Both of them spoke at the same time.

“Twins,” RX-3081 predicted.

“How did you know?” the first Major asked.

“Everyone always figures it out,” the second Major said.

“I have no idea why,” the first Major said.

“It’s a mystery,” RX-3081 said in a deadpanned voice.

SK-0331 covered the snort by turning the voice modulator in his helm off.

Hux allowed the twin Majors to lead him all over the _Absolution_ , showing him all the bits they were most proud of. Much of the systems were Imperial in design, rendering them familiar, but Hux questioned the replacement of R2 units with the new BB droids. His concerns were assuaged by a discussion about the layout of the new ships which allowed for expanding the usage of the old MSE-6 droids. 

Weapons could be fired by AI or by weapons crews. The _Absolution_ did have a handful of weapon personnel on board, enough to take down a static target but not enough to face down a mobile attacker. The ion engines could produce enough thrust that the _Absolution_ could outpace a standard TIE if need be, but the inertia made her nearly impossible to steer at that velocity. Bridge shields were capable of deflecting the wreckage of an A-Wing starfighter on a collision course and the Majors grew quiet when Hux informed them exactly **why** that was the new standard for bridge shielding.

The Majors stayed ominously subdued until the lift doors finally opened on the bridge.

Ilum glowed bright white below them. Tiny dots of comets with cloudy dust and gas tails circled in holding orbits above Ilum and the other Star Destroyers but below the _Absolution_. Asar glowed behind them, visible on a multitude of sensor screens that displayed the local area and plotted various motions and orbits.

Sensor pits lay to either side of him. Navigation and weapons were minimally manned and Hux gestured for TT-1098 and JN-1301 to take posts at those stations, to observe. Hux nodded and the other Hounds all considered positions on the bridge for themselves. TK-1959 moved to Operations and immediately started asking questions. RX-3081 dropped into a sensor pit. GR-8758 joined TT-1098 at navigation. SK-0331 approached the lead security station.

FN-2304 stayed near Hux as FR-2116 asked where the medical ward was.

“Where are we going?” asked one of the Major Raans.

“A planet called Parnassos,” Hux said. “We’re taking the roundabout way in order to avoid major population centers and any hyperspace traffic.”

“So this **is** a covert shakedown,” realized the other Major Raan. “Pay up, brother.”

GR-8758, TT-1098, and the pilot on duty all agreed on a series of jumps that would allow the _Absolution_ to reach Parnassos while also keeping out of anyone’s territory and avoiding major galactic settlements. “We have a course,” TT-1098 said.

“Make the jump,” Hux ordered.

The _Absolution_ barely shifted as she turned away from the bright limb of Ilum to face the distant bulge of the galaxy. That bulge began to smear, stars spreading into bright white and red and blue and yellow trails before hyperspace opened to a soft swirl of blue.

*****

Parnassos hung in the blackness of space. Empty dark oceans roiled under giant storms that lashed the surface. Bleak red continents spread with scant plant life toward the poles where a few spots of green still clung to life at the edges of advancing polar ice sheets. 

The _Absolution_ rumbled as the automated defense system tried to fell the giant Star Destroyer. Turbolasers responded, shredding the unshielded drone satellites that ringed the planet. 

“I think you scratched the paint,” FN-2304 warned. “Daddy isn’t going to be pleased.”

“If he’s so offended he can stay here,” Hux said, enunciating carefully. His voice carried a warning growl that caused FN-2304 to lean back, offering his neck in apology. Hux sniffed but stopped growling, accepting FN-2304’s submission. 

“Targets destroyed,” JN-1301 reported. 

“Majors Raan,” Hux snapped.

The two Majors stood at attention. “Yes, Captain?” they asked.

“JN-1301 and GR-8758 will remain on board. I and the rest of my unit will require the Atmospheric Assault Lander. Majors Raan, you have command until I return.”

Both Majors grinned, though their answers differed. One answered ‘yes Captain’ while the other answered ‘yes sir’. Both men realized their difference and glanced at the other as though trying to figure it out.

Hux left them to it as he and his Hounds piled into the lift. He carried his helm until they reached the hangar where the Assault Lander sat fueled and ready, its loading ramp extended.

RX-3081 entered first, peeling at the clingfilm protectors over all the duraplast plates inside. FN-2304 sprawled out over a crew bench and slung his modified E-11 AR onto his lap. FR-2116 pulled off his helm and opened the bench compartment to rummage through the food supplies. SK-0331 pulled open another bench compartment and found the underwater gear. TK-1959 scowled as he pulled off his helm and watched the others making a mess of the Lander.

“Do we have to?” TK-1959 asked.

“We need to leave the Star Destroyer alone,” RX-3081 defended. “They didn’t say anything about this thing. We should have one like it.”

“This might be why General Pryde won’t let us use one,” TK-1959 warned. “We’d destroy it.”

“We destroyed a Lambda pretty thoroughly,” FN-2304 interjected. “We still have the _Fenris_.”

RX-3081 giggled, the voice modulator in his helmet twisting the sound into something odd and dark. “That was fun.”

“Says you,” TK-1959 grumbled.

Outside Hux held TT-1098 back where the others wouldn’t hear. “Are you comfortable flying this thing?” he asked.

TT-1098 nodded. “I’ll be fine, sir,” she assured him. She grinned. “It’s not the biggest thing I’ve ever flown.”

Hux purred at her implication. Officially she was only observing the helm and navigation of the _Absolution_. Unofficially, the helm officer had allowed her to make a few course corrections during hyperspace reorientations after she asked nicely. “If you need me to co-pilot, let me know,” he offered.

“I wouldn’t mind,” she allowed. “Thank you, sir.”

Hux purred and nudged his face against her blank helm in a nuzzle. Then he pulled away and pulled his own helm over his face.

They entered the Lander to find his Hounds already breaking it in. “Well then,” he said, loud and clear.

FR-2116 stuffed the remains of a ration bar in his mouth and pulled his helm on to hide his puffed cheeks. RX-3081 stopped in mid-pull of his sixth sheet of clingfilm. FN-2304 sat up from where he’d been prepared to take a nap. SK-0331 pretended he didn’t have his hand stuffed under a seat. TK-1959 tried to look like he wasn’t involved in any of this.

“I remind you, this isn’t ours,” Hux warned. “Don’t do anything permanent.”

TT-1098 snickered as she walked past the group to the cockpit of the Lander. She flipped switches, priming the engines of the Lander and pulling the hatch and ramp closed. “Everybody hold on, I’ve never flown one of these before,” she called.

Hux pushed past his unruly Hounds to the cockpit where he took the copilot seat just as the Lander entered empty space.

The trip took mere minutes, almost instantaneous when compared to the eternity of their last landing. TT-1098 set the Atmospheric Assault Lander down on a plateau near the wreckage of something that might once have been a replica of Emperor Palpatine’s own _Imperialis_. Now it was little more than a wreckage of twisted metal, shining chromium wasted in the red desert sand.

Four figures huddled near the wreckage around the remains of a campfire, three adults and a child. One adult got to his feet as the lander approached, though he took his time and nearly collapsed from the effort. Still he kept his feet and attempted to look like he deserved this rescue.

“Radiation warning,” TT-1098 warned. “One and a half rads per hour.”

“Anything we need to worry about?” Hux asked.

“We’ll be fine so long as we don’t stick around. Those idiots, however…” She pointed to the four people outside. The other adults stood up with ease and helped the child to her feet. “We need to get them back to the _Absolution_ to determine just how kriffed they are.”

“Understood,” Hux said, pulling his helm over his head. He headed back into the main compartment. “All right, helms on,” he called. “We have a radiation warning outside and the people we’re picking up are likely radioactive. Helms stay on until and unless I say so.”

Hounds pulled their helms on and activated the internal filtration systems. The Lander shifted as it touched down on the surface of Parnassos and the hatch opened, ramp extending.

Captain Armitage Hux stepped out first, leading his pack of Hounds onto the red desert surface of Parnassos.

General Brendol Hux looked terrible. Bruises under his eyes contrasted with the paleness of his anemia. Despite the hot dry wind he looked feverish and sweaty, his eyes red with exhaustion and radiation exposure. He’d lost weight, a lot of weight, and what he wore couldn’t rightfully be called a ‘uniform’ anymore. He’d been forced to go native, wearing armor made of poorly tanned hides and plates salvaged from the corpses of his own Stormtroopers. His beard was nearly white save for the brown staining around his mouth and his red hair had gone a dull gray.

The gigantic woman next to him looked somewhat better. She was thin yet built, long and lean like someone used to making do while hungry. Her pale blonde hair might have been white but she wore it well. But she was not immune to the radiation, the exhaustion of radiation poisoning written on her face as clearly as on Brendol’s.

The smaller woman looked thinner yet also not and Armitage wondered if she were pregnant. He felt a surge of hatred toward his father for bringing her here. Even if Brendol wasn’t the cause of her condition he’d still brought her here to this radioactive hellhole to suffer alongside him.

Brendol looked up at the black-armored Hounds and sneered in contempt. “I’m being rescued by **you**?” he demanded, venom dripping from his words.

“I could leave you here,” Armitage offered.

Brendol looked both insulted and terrified at the prospect. Still he didn’t deign to answer the offer with words, instead turning to the two women he’d brought with him to rescue. He pointed to one. “You can come with me,” he said.

Hope rose then fell on the face of the smaller woman. “You said we’d both come with you!” she cried. “You promised to get me out of here! I helped you! I saved your **life**! You owe me!”

“I owe you **nothing** **,** girl,” Brendol spat. “I’ve watched you. You’re too soft for the First Order. I can’t use you.” He then turned and stormed up the ramp into the Lander.

Armitage turned to RX-3081. “Keep him out of the cockpit and out of the food,” he ordered.

“Yes sir.” RX-3081 followed Brendol up into the Lander.

The tall woman drew the smaller one into her arms. “I’m sorry,” she soothed, petting the smaller woman’s hair. Strands of it fell away with each stroke of her hand, a casualty of radiation poisoning. “You rejected my order, Siv,” she murmured. “You should have killed Wranderous when I told you to. Instead you condemned him to die in pain. You couldn’t bring yourself to kill him so you gave him the terrible death.”

Siv sniffled, crying silent tears. “I couldn’t… I’m sorry, Phasma, I couldn’t do it.”

Phasma shushed her. “The First Order needs people who can do what must be done, you know this.” She kissed Siv’s forehead before looking her in the eyes. “There’s a medical facility at Calliope Station. It’s three days travel to the West, you can make it. I know you can. Take the supplies from the ship.”

Siv nodded. “I’ll make it,” she promised. “But please take Frey with you.”

Phasma glanced to the line of black armored Hounds and their faceless leader. “I will,” she said defiantly, as though daring these soldiers to contradict her.

Siv headed back to the crashed ship as Phasma picked up the exhausted child Frey and carried her to Armitage.

“What’s happening?” Frey asked, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

Armitage took a deep breath, resigned himself to the decontamination shower, and breached the seal of his armor. He pulled off his helm to look the child in the eyes. The little girl clung tighter to Phasma as she stared at this red haired monster with wide green eyes who wouldn’t open his mouth to smile.

“We’re going up into space,” he said, trying to keep his eyes soft to keep the girl’s attention away from his teeth. “To become good soldiers for the First Order. I was once very little, like you, and took a ride on a ship just like this. And now look how big I am.”

Frey burrowed her face in Phasma’s shoulder without taking her eyes off of the strange man with big teeth and big eyes and shiny black armor. Yet even as scared as she was, she nodded and said “okay”.

Armitage turned his attention on the giant Phasma. He didn’t know enough to trust her but he had to grudgingly accept his father’s judgement. Pragmatically, he knew that Brendol would never acquire someone he considered weak, even to the point of turning a pregnant woman out onto a radioactive wasteland. What Brendol’s interest meant for Phasma, Armitage did not yet know.

He left his helm off. Now that it was off he might as well leave it off. He stepped into the main compartment to find RX-3081 sitting on the bench that hid the standard First Order emergency rations. SK-0331 and FR-2116 both flanked RX-3081, all of them refusing to back down while Brendol ranted, raved, even pleaded.

“Explain,” Armitage asked.

Brendol bared his puny human teeth like it somehow might intimidate the Hounds. They didn’t react. “They’re keeping the rations locked down,” he accused.

“Of course they are, General,” Armitage said, trying to tamp down his own purr. Vengeance tasted slightly metallic, like radioactive fallout. “You’re clearly compromised by long term radiation exposure and I can see you’ve been starved. You must understand, I can’t let you near any sort of food now.”

Brendol’s look of utter fury and dawning horror was worth any punishment Brendol might manage to inflict upon him later.

“You’ve unwittingly subjected me to refeeding syndrome often enough,” Armitage continued. “I can’t in good conscience risk letting you kill yourself by eating, not without the approval of a qualified medical officer.”

Armitage pushed past the flabbergasted general to the cockpit. He stuck his head in and ordered TT-1098 to return to the _Absolution_ without a copilot. He was too radioactive for the cockpit and he needed to stay back in the main compartment for the duration of the trip, to make sure the general didn’t hurt himself further.

*****

It was twelve hours later, after decontamination and medical checks, that Captain Hux found himself on the bridge of the _Absolution_ again. The Majors Raan transferred control back over to him without incident and Hux made a note of it. He could use a pair of Majors willing to defer to him on important matters regardless of rank. He wouldn’t even separate them as he knew most commanders would after five minutes of listening to them finish each other’s sentences.

Armitage opened his mouth to give the order to leave Parnassos when the lift opened. Brendol stormed onto the bridge, still pale and feverish but freshly shaven. He wore a blank uniform without rank, it hung on his deprived frame despite the visible belts cinched to hold everything in place. 

The tall woman named Phasma followed him. She towered over him. To be fair, she towered over every human Armitage had ever met. She wore a set of medical scrubs that ended halfway down her calves and arms and left her flat belly bare. 

“A demonstration is in order,” Brendol announced.

JN-1301, TT-1098, and GR-8758 all looked over from the navigation and weapons stations where they’d all but taken over. RX-3081 and TK-1959 looked up from opposite sensor pits. SK-0331 straightened up from where he manned the security station, silently offering his services if he were needed.

Brendol strode over to the sensor pit and stood at its edge, looming over the technicians and TK-1959 inside. TK-1959 didn’t even bother looking, unwilling to crane his head to look up at some general’s crotch. The technicians all watched TK-1959 and followed his lead.

“Scan the surface for Arratu Station and the Nautilus,” Brendol announced. “Phasma, describe them and their location.”

Phasma stepped forward, towering over Brendol. She described both locations, where and what they were. TK-1959 glanced up at her then at Captain Hux as she spoke. Armitage nodded so TK-1959 turned to the technicians and nodded. They found the two locations Brendol wanted, both of them in the red desert scrublands below.

“Destroy them both,” Brendol ordered.

“What?” Phasma asked.

“You heard me,” Brendol snapped, announcing it to the entire bridge. “Destroy those two locations. Level them. Burn them to the ground!”

JN-1301 raised a hand at the weapons crew, pausing their preparations. She also looked to Captain Hux for guidance. He nodded again, and she allowed the weapons crew to continue their preparations.

Turbolasers fired, raining targeted death onto Arratu Station and the caverns of the Scyre Clan.

Brendol walked to the transparasteel of the bridge viewport. He watched the fire claim those who had made the past months difficult. “Do you see now the power of the First Order, Phasma? What we do to those who oppose us? Even those who inconvenience us?”

Phasma watched the fire that rained onto her homeworld and the man who had ordered it. But her gaze wandered, instead coming to focus on the man in black armor who had allowed the bridge crew to follow those orders. “Powerful indeed,” she allowed.

“Targets destroyed,” TK-1959 said.

“Cease fire and jump to hyperspace,” Armitage ordered. “Someone escort the general back to the med bay. Let’s go home.”

“Yes sir,” GR-8758 said as he and TT-1098 pulled the calculations from the computer and the navigation team pushed the ship to hyperspace.

Brendol turned away from the sudden shift to hyperspace, roiling nausea trying to claim him as he glared at Armitage, as SK-0331 all but dragged his weakened body from the bridge.

Armitage felt that glare as it was cut off by the lift doors. He didn't have time to entertain his father's impotent revenge. He had a project he was in the middle of. Ilum should be prepared for the next strike by now.


	4. The Mad Science Corps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sections of this chapter constitute a [Bad Things Happen Bingo](https://nebulousmistress.tumblr.com/post/616692789320810496/here-is-your-card-for-bad-things-happen-bingo) prompt fill for Be Careful What You Wish For.

General Brendol Hux sat in the medical bay of the _Absolution_ as the Star Destroyer flew its meandering course back to the First Order. A medical droid fussed impotently over him while one of those blasted black-armored failures acted as its assistant.

He was exhausted. His skin itched all over. The decontamination shower hadn’t helped matters, instead irritating his skin to the point where it finally began to react to the radioactive wasteland he’d been forced to crawl through. He couldn’t scratch, he knew if he did the skin would come off. It was something he’d only seen a few times during core failures, technicians doing their jobs until they collapsed at their consoles in puddles of their own burnt flesh and…

Brendol’s fingers clenched as he stopped himself from scratching. Breathe. In. Hold. Out. Hold. In. Hold. Out. Hold.

Okay.

Whatever damage had left him and his companions too nauseous to eat had to be addressed. Skin could be fixed later with grafts and bacta. First, the organs. Then the blood. Then finally the skin.

He was so tired. His head hurt, a pounding like the worst migraine. Pressure from the brain beginning to swell. Too much dust. The lungs would need to be flushed to remove beta-emitting dust. The likelihood of developing a bacta allergy just quintupled.

Brendol attempted to focus on the silhouettes of the medical droid and the faceless black armor but he couldn’t concentrate. He couldn’t even see their features, just the iridescent eyes of the black armor and the glowing eyes of the droid.

Maybe he should get some sleep. But if he slept he wasn’t sure he’d wake up. Not with Armitage in charge. There would be nobody to stop him.

Instead Brendol stared unseeing at a spot in front of him as his head pounded and his skin itched and he silently thanked Armitage for not letting him eat on the shuttle. He wasn’t sure he had any intestinal lining left to digest anything with.

He was so... tired...

*****

Brendol opened his eyes to the bright glow of a pair of droid lenses set into goggles. He closed his eyes and groaned, turning away.

“Good morning to you, too,” Dr. Katsuo crowed.

“Not you,” Brendol murmured. He remembered her. The last time he was strapped to her table had been a humiliating examination of his body inside and out, all to suit the Supreme Leader’s whims of turning his half-human son into a monstrous attempt at a full-blooded Arkanan. The last time he’d been held down and gassed, unable to fight as she poked and prodded and manipulated and… inserted _things_. This time he wasn’t much better off, bright lights stabbing his throbbing head and his body betraying him with its weakness.

“You remember me!” Dr. Katsuo sounded pleased at his recollection. As if he could forget. “Who better to put you back together than someone who knows you inside and out.”

He squinted at her and regretted it. The shoulder length latex gloves were still there, black and shining, but there was more this time. A black respirator over her face led to a complex filter strapped to her back. The lab coat was already splattered and stained with blood and pale interstitial fluid. Her short hair was hidden under a black latex hood that extended down the neck and under the lab coat.

“You lost weight,” she observed. “Though I rather think it wasn’t your idea. And you have a particularly impressive nuclear tan. It’s impressive because it isn’t coming off. You’ve lost less than 5% of your skin, given how radioactive you were when you came in here I’d have thought you’d lose more. But I suppose most of your problems were inhaled. I’ll have to alter your breathing mixture when I can finally get around to treating you.”

“Treat me now,” Brendol ordered.

Dr. Katsuo scoffed. “Why? So all your new skin can fall off when the underlying layer dies? I can’t treat you until everything that’s going to die already has, you know that.” She paused before adjusting her goggles. “You **do** know that, right?”

“That’s just an excuse,” Brendol snapped, though he couldn’t look at her. It was an excuse he’d given to his own men as they writhed in medical bays after core breaches, as the med droids spoke empty words in empty voices. It had to be an excuse! He was a general, it didn’t apply to him! There was no reason to delay his treatment.

“I suppose I could speed things up a bit.” Dr. Katsuo sounded far too pleased with the idea. She walked away and started pulling open drawers.

Brendol took the opportunity to look around. Of course he wasn’t in any ordinary medical facility, he was back in Dr. Katsuo’s own personal laboratory. He still had nightmares of this place, the deactivated holo projectors and the inactive droids that once before had been so full of life and strength and terror. The observation deck where the Supreme Leader himself once watched his humiliation sat empty and silent and dark. He was alone with her. That realization did not fill him with confidence.

Suddenly the holoprojectors all came to life, holograms of his own body, his insides, schematics of his own anatomy. Worse, Dr. Katsuo came back with both hands full of scalpels and a giggle on her voice. “I can use your previous scans to determine where the most damage is.” She nearly trembled in glee at the prospect. “Then I can remove the tissue expected to die and fall off! Isn’t that wonderful? I can have you fitted with skin and bowel grafts and your marrow replaced in just a few short hours! Then you can have your bacta bath and you’ll be as fit as a newly minted droid. I can have you on your feet in days instead of the weeks it'll take if I followed normal procedures.”

Brendol could feel the manic grin despite the mask that covered her expression and the goggles over her eyes. 

“Ooo, I’ve never had the chance to do this to a human before.” She nearly bounced as she laid out the scalpels on a tray and pulled over more supplies. Dr. Katsuo gestured at a medical droid and it activated, lumbering over to a cabinet to pull down cylindrical vats of pink fluid that moved far too viscously to be water.

“Wait…” Brendol knew then he had made a terrible mistake. “I can wait. It can take weeks, I don't need to be anywhere, it’s fine!”

“Nonsense,” she crooned as she fitted a mask over his face. The gas added to his radiation-induced confusion, making the room fade. “This is what you wanted. Trust me, General. I’m a doctor.”

Somehow that wasn’t comforting.

The room spun and went blessedly dark.

*****

The _Locutor_ and the _Absolution,_ the _Thunder_ and the _Guardian_ , the _Endless_ and the _Impetus_ all hung over Ilum awaiting the spectacle.

Ilum’s pure white crescent shone on the limb facing Asar while the vast dark bulk of the planet’s night side spun below the Star Destroyers that sat far above in a synchronous orbit. The vast tail of a single comet splayed behind the entire fleet, a shining opal carpet of ice and dust that fanned out into space like a veil. Smaller comets with smaller tails marred the giant opal veil, their thinner tails tracing lines through space like letters of white inked to a pale page.

All except one. One comet with its shining tail left the pack, its orbit changed and calculated, its target set. The tail traced a line through space into darkness, behind the shadow of Ilum.

And then…

The bright orange flash rent the darkness of Ilum’s night, shattering the illusion of calm. It blossomed like a flower, petals of bright orange-white ejecta turning dull and red as their heat faded out of incandescence. The crater within glowed a bright volcanic spot, orange and red and oh so small compared to the ejecta cloud that rained burning stones over a 1200 km area. 

Applause on the bridge of the _Endless_ matched the shouting and jeering in the observation decks of the _Locutor_ and the toasting in the officer’s lounge on the _Impetus_ and the Stormtroopers pushing and shoving past each other to get a good view on every ship in the fleet.

The nightside impact wasn’t as visually impressive as the impacts on the day side but night had its own unique beauty. Even now as the celebrations died down the impact crater glowed like a starflower, long petals of warmth on sensors around a bright center as the heat pulse set the region aglow with meltwater, with burning trees, with the rumbling of earthquakes as Ilum rang like a bell.

*****

Brendol awoke to weightlessness.

And then to everything else.

He was completely nude. The overwhelming taste of sickly sweet sting filled his mouth and nose and throat. A tube down his mouth held his lungs open and free of the fluid that surrounded him. He couldn’t see past the bright blur of the tank walls that confined him. He grabbed at the tube, feeling where the ring gag forcibly held his mouth open allowing the bacta to flow freely through his insides and--

He retched, though nothing moved. He couldn’t swallow, didn’t have to, the bacta seemed to have a mind of its own as it--

“It’ll be easier if you don’t fight it, General.”

Brendol slammed his hands on the tank wall. He pounded on it, trying to get the attention of whomever was out there. Bacta tanks weren’t supposed to work like this! He wasn’t held in place, he floated freely in the viscous fluid. He didn’t even have underwear to protect his modesty. He was supposed to be wearing a mask, not intubated with his jaw spread open and forced to breath something that didn’t even feel or move like air. And he was not going to think about all the bacta that must be filling his belly with nowhere else to go but out the other end and back into the tank around him.

A black hand pressed against the glass, its silhouette all he could see. The shape, the color, the latex, he realized he was still at her mercy. Dr. Katsuo.

Okay. Breathe. In. Hol--

Frick. That wasn’t going to work. There must be a machine breathing for him, pumping the mixture in and out at its own pace, a pace he couldn’t control. He knew she could see him so he grabbed the breathing tube.

“It’s a breathing fluid,” Dr. Katsuo explained. He could hear the electronic warble of her voice now, there was a comm in the tank that enabled her to speak to him. Or maybe it was one of those bone conduction devices Armitage was working on to go with his simulation room.

“Your lungs were full of radioactive particulates. The fluid dissolves them and pulls them out. It was deemed necessary to keep your exposure finite.”

Brendol put his hands over his middle, trying to regain his modesty as his junk floated in the tank.

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. I had to debride the flesh from some tender areas, including the crease between your left thigh and buttock. We wouldn’t want the skin grafts trying to heal to your underwear, now would we?”

Brendol shook his head. No, he didn’t want anything healing **to** anything else. He reached up above him, trying to find either the top of the tank or the mechanism that was supposed to hold him in place while within. He felt only a ceiling and it wasn’t that far above his head.

“Again, you suffered burns in some delicate places. You’re held in place by density calculations. Don’t worry, the additive is entirely inert both to your wounds and your insides.”

Brendol gave her what he hoped was an unimpressed look.

“Well, you’re going to be in there awhile, General. I’m going to get some work done. If you want me to put you to sleep just tap the tank twice and I’ll add it to your breathing mixture.”

And then she was gone.

The lighting of the tank, or maybe refraction from the ‘inert additives’, made it impossible to see the outside world. He had nothing but his own thoughts to keep him company as he floated in his own slimy little universe. 

At least the headache was gone. That was something.

He wondered what was going on outside.

*****

“There’s no reason for this!”

“Any particular ‘this’ in mind? Or are you simply here to object to my line of work?”

“There’s no reason why he should be naked! And the mask is all wrong. How is he supposed to be lifted out of the tank without the straps? Do you have any idea how bacta is supposed to be used, Doctor, if that is your title?”

“As the head of xenobiophysical research in your precious First Order I--”

“So you aren’t a doctor! You’re a scientist, one of the Supreme Leader’s uncontrolled... mad scientists!”

“How **dare** you mock my research! Here, hold this vial.”

“What is this rubbish?”

“That is your General’s intestinal biota. I had to empty his entire GI tract. I’ll be recolonizing him with that very vial later.”

“Augh!”

The sound of broken glass pulled Brendol from his drift back to Dr. Katsuo’s laboratory. He opened his eyes to the same bright blur of the bacta tank. This time he thought he might make out shadows moving in the bright field of nothing beyond the glass.

“You’re lucky I have spares now get out!”

“I will do no such thing!”

The comm must be open. Brendol could hear the electronically filtered voices of Dr. Katsuo and General Pryde. Thank the Force, someone sane. He slapped a hand against the tank wall, trying to get their attention.

“By the stars, what have you done?!" Pryde demanded, nearly screaming. "He’s conscious! I demand you put him back under at once!”

“Welcome back to the ship of the conscious, General," Dr. Katsuo said, her voice disturbingly cheerful. "How do you feel?”

Brendol had no idea how to answer that. He was still naked and intubated in a bacta tank. Worse, Enric Pryde was here to see his state. He had no way of saying any of this. He reached up to the breathing tube and wrapped his hand around it as an answer.

“I don’t doubt it, every time I’ve been intubated it’s been dreadful,” she said. “Well. The breathing mixture is coming out clean, meaning your lungs are clear of beta emitters. The marrow replacement went well. Bacta sampling shows you’re no longer shedding your intestinal lining and your skin looks attached. You’re even regrowing your hair. I think we can get you out of there. If your distressingly unadventurous friend here can be convinced to leave the operating floor I can begin the extraction.”

Brendol wore the most commanding expression he could manage while naked with a tube down his throat. It wasn’t much. He pointed in a direction, the universal signal for ‘get out’.

“I will not! Someone has to keep an eye on this, this mockery of medicine!”

“If you don’t leave my operating floor and retreat to the observation theatre I will have no choice but to summon Stormtroopers to have you removed for interfering with a medical procedure.”

“You wouldn’t dare!”

Brendol slammed his fist into the tank wall and gestured again. The viscosity of the bacta removed much of the force of his gesture.

It must have worked because the top of the tank opened. Mechanical arms reached in and hoisted Brendol up by his armpits, lifting him out of the bacta mixture that clung to his skin and dripped from him like Hutt slime. It lowered him to the floor and then further as his legs refused to support his weight, instead gently depositing him on his hands and knees. He reached up to the breathing tube, unable to grab it as his hands slid along its rubbery length.

Black rubber soled boots stood nearby and he looked up to see Dr. Katsuo standing over him with a manic grin. “Not yet, General,” she warned. “Remember, I had to cut the bacta for density purposes. I cut it with polyethylene polymers. Completely inert and medically safe but the surface tension will stop your breathing if I pull the tube out. Luckily it cleans up easily.”

She stepped back and a droid dumped a new fluid over him. The sickly sweet bacta dissolved from his mouth, replaced with the sharp taste of simple saltwater as the slime melted away. Then he felt the droid pulling the ring gag from his jaw and the tube from his throat and everything got so much worse so fast.

He retched, heaving thick pink fluid from his mouth and nose. Air, sharp stinging air stabbed his insides like tiny knives. Still it kept going, his lungs spasming as he coughed and choked on his own breath, taking great desperate gulps of air between every painful retch.

Too long. After far too long it stopped and he lay on the grated floor of the laboratory, grateful to be alive.

“It’s not over yet,” Dr. Katsuo warned.

Brendol looked up to see her sitting at a lab bench as she took detailed notes. She watched his reaction with an intensity he instinctively disliked. “What?” he rasped.

She gestured at him with a stylus. “You had extensive damage to your intestinal lining,” she said, almost conversationally. “Probably from drinking radioactive water. Terrible decision, really, should have tried going without. You’re lucky I didn’t have to replace any of the structure. Instead I had to clear out the entire GI tract, clone the lining cells that survived, and graft them all the way down. Your entire digestive tract from mouth to anus is stuffed full of bacta and there’s only two ways out. Up or down. That’s up to you, I think. I’ll need you to clear it out for me before I recolonize you. And I do need to get you recolonized as soon as possible, before your own enzymes start to digest you from the inside out, undoing all that work I just did.”

Brendol tried to stand up but he couldn’t. Weakness pulled him back to the floor, his legs unable to hold his weight.

“You won’t be able to stand for a few hours yet. By then I expect the internal damage will be done.”

He looked at the med droids. This was their function, to act as nurses for someone in his position! Why weren’t they doing anything!

“Both, I think,” she said cheerfully. “Both is most efficient. You can manage both right there on the floor. And your friend General Pryde has volunteered to stay and watch the whole thing, to make sure I don't mock modern medicine too thoroughly. Maybe he wants to help. He can hold the tubes while I reconstitute your own biota and shove it up your ass!”

The sound of an aborted retch and the gentle swish of a door heralded Pryde’s hasty exit.

“There, we’re alone,” she said. “I was serious, General. I need you to empty yourself before I can recolonize you. Get going. Your insides are more sterile than my outsides right now and your reluctance will get you killed. I’m sure you didn’t get yourself irradiated only to die of intestinal rupture on the floor of my lab.”

Brendol shook his head, took a deep breath, desperately tried to ignore how the scientist watched with quiet glee, and stuffed his own fingers down his throat.

*****

General Brendol Hux stepped out onto the bridge of the _Locutor_. He should have gone directly to his quarters but he felt the need to assert his station on this ship first. He was exhausted. His knees ached despite the bacta, sore from kneeling on the grated floor of Dr. Katsuo’s lab. His throat ached from being intubated and from so much effort spent afterwards. Patches of skin were still tight, the skin grafts healed into specific positions dictated by the bacta tank and now he had to gently stretch them to avoid tearing anything.

He wasn’t allowed to eat anything for the next three days, forced instead to drink some disgusting nutrient slurry that tasted oddly of overcooked meat. He didn’t want to think about his digestive tract at all, not given what had just happened to him. He could **feel** the fact that he was walking funny.

The bridge was… odd. Sensor and navigation teams seemed to be preparing for some pre-planned event. Weapons crews were all stood down, their consoles left bereft as they craned their heads to get a good view of the gibbous Ilum below them. Officers on duty lined the transparisteel viewports, watching for something.

One officer stood alone and Brendol ignored him. He didn’t give a whit what Armitage was doing staring out the window. Instead Brendol found General Pryde at his command post.

“What’s going on?” Brendol asked.

Pryde glared at him and Brendol wondered what it was.

“Your bastard brat is ‘going on’,” Pryde snarled.

“What’s he done this time?” Brendol shot a low glare at Armitage standing at the viewport. He almost missed the long line of pale dust outside but it was so incongruous that his eyes followed it as it traced across and down and…

“What the kriff?” Brendol realized.

Pryde merely glared.

Brendol watched in dawning horror as the comet streaked across space, lazily drifting and falling and then…

There was no sound. A bright flash of light expanded across Ilum’s snow white surface, burning the snow bright, brighter, white hot in a bubble of fury that gnawed at the delicate world below. It expanded like a bubble and then popped, droplets of fire falling across Ilum’s surface like the splatter from a wave. The shock wave crept across the surface, pushing ever outward as scant forests flashed to flame and the ice sheets cracked and melted.

A roar of sound hit him like a shockwave and it had nothing to do with the asteroid strike outside. Rather every voice on the bridge raised in riotous sound as though they--

_They expected this!_

Officers in blue Major’s uniforms congratulated Armitage as he watched the carnage below while vibrating with that damnable purr. The Stormtroopers on guard all shouted nonsense words of excitement. The sensor crew worked furiously despite the chaos of the uncontrolled bridge, shouting data and commands at the navigation crew for shifting position and orbit.

“Your son has the Supreme Leader’s goahead for these ‘experiments’,” Pryde grumbled. “I am forced to allow it.”

“That was… an experiment?” Brendol whispered.

“That was the sixth such experiment,” Pryde confirmed.

“And the last,” Brendol swore. He squared his shoulders and left the bridge, refusing to dwell on the image of Armitage framed by the bright explosion as the comet impacted Ilum below. He would find a way to put a stop to it. Somehow.

*****

The icy surface of Ilum looked marred even from here. General Brendol Hux stepped out of the shuttle onto the cold tarmac. The pure white snow wasn’t so pure anymore, streaked with dark dust and soot from fires on the other side of the planet. The sky wasn’t so bright anymore, dark dust clouds drifting across the bright white light of distant Asar.

General Hux scowled at the destruction suffered onto this planet and squared his shoulders as the Stormtrooper Captain JZ-4331 approached. He did not like the easy stride or the distinct bounce to the trooper’s step, it meant the trooper was happy. He didn’t trust happy Stormtroopers.

“Report,” Brendol snapped.

JZ-4331 saluted. “Yes sir. Efforts to shore up the equatorial trench are progressing on schedule. Per new orders the trench forcefield superstructure has been separated into substructure sections, 36 of them. Thirty three of those sections are operational and power consumption is 15% below the projected usage for the previous design.”

“Who ordered the design change?”

“Captain Armitage Hux, sir.”

Brendol growled. Of course. Armitage had just gone and made himself at home then on this blighted ice planet. “Where is he?”

JZ-4331 pointed in the direction of the caves. “He’s off in the Jedi caverns. I can have a speeder take you there, sir.”

“Good.”

Brendol had no intention of letting Armitage keep this planet.

At least the caves looked no different. The dam above the caves still held, the lake behind spreading across the upper plateau. The ancient temple was long gone, destroyed by the Empire decades prior to build the speeder station and the barracks beyond. Lifts took personnel into the cave systems, to the upper galleries where Jedi padawans once slept and the lower galleries where they once selected the kyber crystals for their blades. That hadn’t changed.

The lift descended through solid rock and the winding passages of the Jedi. The sounds of panicked bats fluttered in the passage. Brendol scowled as he instinctively ducked, trying to avoid being hit in the face by any bat that might somehow flutter into the lift. His first order would be an eradication of all these giant bats. Then an end to whatever asteroid impact plans Armitage still had.

The lift opened onto the lower galleries and Brendol stood up, straightening his uniform. The caverns were certainly active. Bracing held the walls rigid, propped up against the force of the earthquakes caused by the impacts. The floor was clear of kyber, the easy deposits all mined out and moved elsewhere. Plasma lamps took their place, soft white lights that reached all the way up to the ceiling that currently sat bare of pesky bats.

Stormtroopers moved with more purpose than they really had, all of them focused around one single point in the middle. Brendol could tell the moment Dr. Bescom saw him as the bright pale yellow of the kyber dust in his lab coat immediately faded to nothing. The cavern seemed to dim around him, the kyber in the walls reacting to the scientist, and it only made the eyeshine of the monster next to him all the stronger.

Armitage glanced up and his expression soured, teeth bared in a growl. The Stormtrooper next to him holding a dead bat backed away. Armitage sniffed and said something that kept the Stormtrooper from running. Instead the trooper held the dead bat out and Armitage took it by the neck and tore off the head with his teeth.

Armitage stared Brendol right in the eye as he spat the bat’s head into a pitfall. He peeled the skin off of the neck with his bare hands, never taking his eyes off of Brendol while his father approached. Armitage took a bite, slicing a vertebra out of the neck and crunching the bone with a distinct slowness.

He was doing this on purpose.

“A word,” Brendol snapped.

“We can talk right here,” Armitage warned.

“In private, boy.”

Stormtroopers stopped pretending to be busy and instead grew quiet. Several still held dead bats. One bat wasn’t entirely dead, it came to and started squeaking as it flailed its delicate wings. The Stormtrooper wrenched its neck, bringing the bat back to still death.

Armitage took another bite, crunching the bones with deliberate noise.

“These experiments end right now,” Brendol declared.

Armitage swallowed, his throat rattling in the now silent cave. “I’m not sure you have the authority to do that,” he mused.

“You’re using my Stormtroopers,” Brendol argued. “At any point I can pull my support from this project. What will you do without the Stormtrooper Corps at your disposal?”

“I could use the Tech Corps,” Armitage mused. “In that case I’m sure they would accept any Stormtrooper willing to transfer in. The Tech Corps could use the extra manpower if I’m going to use them on Ilum. They’d take any volunteer willing to learn.”

Stormtroopers shifted in their armor. One of them stepped forward and offered Armitage a dead bat, its chest blackened by blaster fire. “I’m sure many of us would volunteer, sir.”

Armitage took the bat, stuffing the neck into his belt. It dangled like a dead chicken waiting to be plucked. “Every Stormtrooper here has already volunteered for this project,” he revealed. “I only take volunteers. Then there are the scientists. You’d be amazed how many of them are willing to get their hands dirty when allowed.”

Brendol scoffed. “Yes, your Mad Science Corps.” He meant it to be an insult, a disparagement to their recent activities. He did not like the bright red-orange that lit up Dr. Bescom’s lab coat or the surrounding kyber. He did not like the junior geologists who grinned at each other at the name. He did not like how Armitage purred as he took a fresh bite of that disgusting dead bat.

“You don’t know where that’s been,” Brendol protested.

Armitage chewed slowly, crunching the bone loudly on purpose. He swallowed with a rattling gulp and licked at the blood trailing down his fingers.

“They eat the seeds off the trees on the surface,” said a Stormtrooper. Brendol glared at the interruption. He did not want nor need any of the Stormtroopers deciding to be ‘helpful’ at the moment, they’d already ‘helped’ enough.

“If you’re taking the Stormtrooper Corps off the project I’ll just have to make do,” Armitage said with exaggerated lamentation. “I’ll use the Technician Corps. And it seems I have a Mad Science Corps. As the Head Engineer of the Ilum Project I have options and they don’t all require your approval.” He reached up and pulled at the skin of the bat, snapping the wings at the shoulders to peel them off. “Will you be informing your Stormtrooper Corps you’re pulling them from the project or will I?”

Brendol turned on his heel and stormed back to the lift. He ignored the feeling of betrayal that bubbled up in him as he heard his own Stormtroopers asking Armitage how they could transfer to the Technician Corps. The lift ascended into darkness and only then did Brendol realize that not one Stormtrooper had tried to curry his favor by handing him a kyber crystal.

*****

Captain Armitage Hux stood at the head of the conference table, scientists seated all around him. SK-0331 and TK-1959 stood at the door, standing guard outside to prevent any unwanted intrusion.

Dr. Bescom took one section of the table, kyber samples strewn around him. The crystals shimmered in multiple colors, orange and yellow and blue. Dr. Otero sat with his hands folded in front of him and a quiet glower on his face. A new scientist took the far edge of the table.

Hux introduced the head scientists to each other. “Dr. Bescom, planetary geology. His primary research is kyber crystals and their uses. Dr. Otero, religious anthropology. He’s the only remaining expert in the galaxy on the history of Ilum and how the Jedi used this planet. Dr. Pietre, unified field physics. Her primary research is on the effects of Hyperspace and Otherspace on open strings.”

The scientists all greeted one another.

“For the past several weeks the Ilum Project has been focused on discovery,” Hux said. “We know so very little about the inner workings of this planet. We have assumed it’s a standard silicate-mantle superterra with an iron-nickel core but as you all know that’s an assumption. There are stranger planets than that in this galaxy, even habitable ones. Therefore we’ve been using seismic tomography to probe the depths of Ilum’s inner structure and I believe we have some findings. Dr. Bescom.” Hux gave the floor to Dr. Bescom and sat down.

“Thank you, Captain,” Dr. Bescom said, getting up. He clicked some control buttons on the conference table and one wall lit up as a holoscreen. The room dimmed to give the holoscreen better clarity as Br. Bescom presented the preliminary findings from the asteroid strikes.

Ilum was indeed some sort of superterra. It had a mantle of silicate-oxide rock approximately 4800km thick. The core seemed to have three layers to it, a liquid outer core 1200 km thick, a solid iron middle core 250km thick, and a surprisingly lightweight inner core between 3000km and 3100 km in radius.

“Analysis of the primary waves produced by each impact lead to the conclusion that the inner core of Ilum is nearly pure kyberite.”

The room went silent.

“That explains why the Jedi sent their Padawans here,” Dr. Otero allowed. “There are more civilized planets in the galaxy that carry natural kyber. If Ilum is one single kyber crystal then…”

“The whole planet as one single crystal,” Hux marvelled. He sat back and began to purr.

“It explains some early research done on the philosophies of the Jedi,” Dr. Otero continued. “They believe their kyber is alive. If they believe every crystal is part of one single entity that belief might bind them closer together. It kept the disparate branches of the Jedi all following the same single dogma without question.”

“Or if it’s not just belief?” Dr. Pietre asked. “Could there be some entanglement at work? Were the Jedi, either as a religion or individually, influenced by their own sentient weapons?”

“It’s possible,” Dr. Otero murmured. He picked up his datapad and began making notes for future study and research.

“Kyber does seem to exhibit some communal behaviors,” Dr. Bescom agreed. “If one crystal reacts to an emotion any crystals nearby will tend to show the same reaction. The effect can fade over distance but then reemerge further down.”

“How do we access it?” Hux asked.

“We don’t,” Dr. Bescom admitted. “Pieces of the whole break off in core plumes to reach the surface during supereruptive and hypereruptive flood basalt events but as far as we can tell you can’t access the whole that way. If Ilum has a mind of its own you won’t change it from the surface.”

Hux had an idea. It was a terrible idea. “How far down would you have to be to ‘change it’s mind’, so to speak?”

“Halfway to the core, at least. Lower mantle to be safe. Ideally within the core.”

Hux purred, his thrum filling the room and drawing a confused look from Dr. Otero. He bared his titanium teeth in an eerie grin. He had an idea.

Hux tamped down his purim or he tried to anyway. “Dr. Bescom, what would happen if a ten kilometer comet crashed directly into open asthenosphere?”

Dr. Bescom snorted. “You’d make a very big very deep hole straight to the... mid to lower mantle...” He trailed off, staring at his kyber samples. He watched as they shimmered several colors, yellow and green and red and yellow and dark and white and… “You’d have to find a way to keep it open,” he realized. “The asthenosphere isn’t rigid enough to keep it open for you.”

“Rigid enough to keep it open long enough to pry it open?” Hux asked.

“You’ll need to find some material capable of withstanding the heat and pressure of the lower mantle. I’m talking the temperature of the surface of a red star and 2 million times ship-standard pressure.”

“Tungsten carbide,” Dr. Pietre suggested. “Tantalum hafnium carbide. You’d need to disassemble a planet to acquire enough. There’s a small rocky planet with a giant core orbiting near Asar.”

Dr. Bescom squeaked.

“What kind of damage are we looking at?” Dr. Otero asked.

“The 10km comet will cause an earthquake about magnitude 11 on the logarithmic scale,” Dr. Bescom whispered. Then he giggled. “We’re really doing this?”

“I will need time to prepare the upper caverns,” Dr. Otero warned. “The cavern structure has not suffered from your earthquakes but I do not wish to take chances.”

“We’ll need time to bring the comet out of storage,” Hux agreed. “You’ll have your chance to prepare.”

“I have to say, Captain, you promised me fireworks,” Dr. Pietre mused. “You don’t disappoint.”

“Nor will I,” Hux purred.

No, he had plans for Ilum. Those plans were becoming clearer with every asteroid impact he inflicted onto the ice sheets.

*****

This would be the last planned impact.

Without the Stormtroopers to assist Captain Armitage Hux found the Technician Corps more than willing to take over duties on Ilum. He even found several ‘new recruits’ to the Technician Corps who looked lost without their Stormtrooper helms; he allowed them to take back up the very duties they’d lost when Brendol pulled the Stormtrooper Corps off of Ilum.

Fine then. Brendol could keep his Stormtroopers, all of them, on his brand new ship, the _Absolution_. If Armitage had thought of it he would have gnawed on all the furniture in the CO’s quarters when he had the chance. Instead he had an entire planet at his disposal.

Hux watched from the bridge of the _Locutor_ as the giant fan-tailed comet slowly approached Ilum. The tail’s fan tightened, a long single line of gas and dust where the Tugs had pulled it from its storage orbit into a direct collision course. General Pryde scowled from his perch at the command post on the _Locutor_ while he knew every window on a dozen Star Destroyers was filled with faces pressed against the transparasteel.

“On target for sector 17.”

Hux acknowledged the shout from the sensor pit. “Status of the forcefield over sector 17.”

“Deactivated, sir. It’s programmed to reactivate the moment the comet passes underneath.”

Hux nodded. “Good,” he praised. “Make sure all data is logged and preserved. I want to know the exact temperature and pressure when the forcefields fail.”

“Wait, what did you mean ‘when’ the forcefields fail?!” Pryde demanded.

“They will fail,” Hux allowed. “And we will watch.” He purred as he imagined he could **feel** Pryde’s furious terror.

The comet approached, vanishing into the mining trench left by the Empire. Forcefields snapped on, enclosing the vast heat and light of the impact before they overloaded and failed in a bright flash of ejecta and thermal pulse. The shock wave shot out along the trench walls in a chaotic wave, altered by the forcefields and bouncing along the trench. A great bubble of fire billowed into space, cooling to sheets of disrupted lava and sparkling kyber that rained onto the world below in a hail of flaming debris. 

Ilum **sang** below them all, her secrets wrenched from her own screams as the comet impact left a giant hole burrowed into the soft mantle.

A hole that would take years to fill in.

A hole that would never close.


End file.
